


Lost in Space on a Desert Island

by ivanolix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Gen, Gen Fic, POV Female Character, Pre-Canon, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-08
Updated: 2009-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara ends up stuck on a Raptor repair flight that has a lot more trouble than the brochure indicated, and she has to work with a new team if she's going to get them out of the trouble in one piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For lyssie, who asked for “Kara, Athena and Dee on a recon mission, possibly shooting down some Cylons or human pirates. C'mon, there had to be human pirates at SOME point. (Athena flies the raptor, Dee's there for communications and also it's her turn on the roster, and Kara's there to mock raptors for their inefficiency and general lack of sexiness) - OR, Boomer could be there, which could put it pre-series or season one.”

“And that, sir,” Kara finished, leaning back in her rec-room chair, the environment around her settled to near-silent buzz of listening excitement, “is the Thracian equation of leadership, and the explanation of your shockingly low score.” She flashed a quick smile, staring straight up at Colonel Tigh. “See, sir, I always knew those math courses would come in handy some day.”

The fire in his eyes glinted sharply towards her, causing the sweet taste of triumph to rise in her mouth, and she mingled it with the high-quality ambrosia in her shot glass. Nothing new here, as she could guess by the usual quick bets being murmured back and forth among fellow pilots off behind Tigh.

As for the Colonel, he took two seconds, no more. “I need you off my ship, Captain,” he said in a low voice.

Kara blinked, ignoring the quick exchange of bets in her peripheral eyesight. “Sir?”

“Off my ship, next flight,” said Tigh with dark determination. “You walk down to the hangar, take the next Raptor out of here, and I don’t want to see or hear you for the rest of today. I assume, with that brain of yours, you can understand that as well as your math?”

She danced her eyes fiercely back at him, their gazes sparring in mid-air for a second. “Yes, sir,” she said, without an ounce of the appropriate meaning.

Tigh just stood, and Kara gritted her teeth and, forcing herself not to push the issue further, rose. She let her shot glass drop with a clink. “See you later, then,” she said with a nonchalant glance to Crashdown and Racetrack, the other denizens at her table.

She almost tossed a last barb to Tigh at the door to the rec room, turning around and staring at his back for a pregnant second—but it was a good day after all, and she’d expected this. It was worth it. This wouldn’t exactly be a punishment anyways.

So, with an emotional state entirely lacking chagrin, she smoothly made her way down to the hangar bay where all the action was happening. Chief had a CAP out already, and the refueling mission had just finished, so she had to walk past a good deal of the bustle before seeing a way to fulfill her task.

One Raptor stood in the outgoing area, door open, about ready for takeoff. Kara raised her eyebrow as she didn’t recognize the officer standing with a flightsuit and a clipboard. Or, rather, she’d seen her before, at a briefing maybe, just not where any of the older members of Galactica’s crew would be. A newbie, then, Kara assumed. Not bad at all.

Hands in her pockets, she strolled up to the Raptor door just as she saw someone she did know, Lt. Dualla.

“Got stuck on the bottom shift, huh Dee?” she called warmly. “Who’s the new Raptor monkey?”

The new girl blinked, tensed a little, her small frame prepared to bristle. They always misunderstood; it was cute, Kara thought.

“Don’t listen to her, Sharon, she’s just a viper jock, it’s her job to insult you,” Dee said, rolling her eyes as she turned to the Raptor pilot and ignoring Kara’s other question. Like Sharon, her hair was pulled back tight, her uniform fitting neatly, while Kara’s tanks hung slightly ruffled, her hair in need of a trimming.

“Sharon Valerii?” Kara asked, tossing a knowing glance to Dee, with whom she’d always shared a back-and-forth acquaintance. “Karl mentioned you, I remember now.” She offered her hand with a smile. “Kara Thrace, viper jock, and don’t listen to Dee, I hang around too many Raptor monkeys for my own good.”

Sharon gave a smile, slightly unsure, but shook Kara’s hand firmly. “Lt. Valerii,” she answered. “I think I’ve heard of you too.”

“Not surprising,” Kara answered, then glanced between them. Dee had climbed aboard the Raptor, adjusting something, and she came out to point at something on Sharon’s checklist. “So, XO’s sending me to cool my heels on the first flight out; what’re we headed for?”

Sharon blinked a little, but Dee didn’t look surprised at the lack of permission asked. “We’re waiting on Specialist Henderson,” Sharon said after a brief pause. “She’s the deck officer for this mission. The FTL on this Raptor has been shifty, nothing dangerous, but there could be some kind of bug or malfunction. Chief can’t figure it out while it’s landed, so we’re doing field tests.”

Other than the way she might have been reading it from an official report, Kara approved of Sharon’s news. She nodded. “Fun,” she said, with a dance of her eyebrows.

Sharon cracked a tiny smile then, a little relieved. “Yeah,” she said dryly.

“Are you Lt. Valerii?” came a voice from behind Kara. Turning around, she saw another person she only knew by sight, though more frequently. The small woman with dark bangs looked a little out of place in her flight-ready jumpsuit, large toolbox in hand.

“Yes,” Sharon said, quickly pulling herself back to crisp professionalism.

“Specialist Cally Henderson,” the other woman said, nodding, looking ready but slightly discomfited. “Chief sent me.”

“Good, thank you for being on time,” Sharon said. She glanced around. Dee was already back in the Raptor. “That’s the full bird, then. Captain Thrace, are you ready to go?”

Kara nodded, then poked her head around the Raptor. “Wait, Dee, what are you doing on this ride?”

“Backseat,” Dee answered, wiping her hands as she walked into Kara’s eyesight. “More electronics, though, making sure the programming is correct, or at least matching what Cally is doing with the physical engine.”

“Yup,” Cally said, a little more brightly, smiling at Dee who returned it freely. Apparently Dee knew everyone on this ride, a fact that shouldn’t surprise Kara even though it always did, the more she knew Dee.

“Guess I’m copilot, then,” Kara offered, equally bright, as Sharon walked in and closed the door behind her.

“I can handle things,” Sharon assured quickly.

“I’m sure you can,” Kara answered, only half mollifying. “But so can I, and there’s really not room for three back here.”

Sharon glanced around at the group, and even though Dee and Cally were both compact in size, Kara was clearly right. There was a bit of uneasiness in her look anyways, and she looked to Dee.

“Oh, she’s not here for true punishment,” Dee said, catching on. “Kara likes pissing off Tigh; he just needs a few hours free of her. She won’t cause any problems.”

“’Course not,” Kara said, even as her grin belied the firmness of her tone. “Besides, Karl’d have my ass if I did, not to mention the Old Man.” She raised her eyebrow, indicating the front. “Shall we?”

Sharon nodded. “Right. Let’s get this mission started.”

Kara settled herself in the right seat, clipping the belts in place out of protocol’s sake, thinking that Sharon had been shocked by enough of her for a few minutes at least. It’d been a while since she’d had this much space in a cockpit, and though it didn’t feel like home, it wasn’t bad for a day. Sharon buckled in a little more formulaically, pressing the controls in textbook order. Again, Kara found her behavior a little cute.

“Okay, are we ready back there?” Sharon asked, as she started moving the Raptor to the airlock.

Kara tossed a brief glance back. Dee was sitting at the computer station, headset on, looking just as she did in CIC. Dee was a constant wherever she went. Cally sat on the bench, toolbox at her feet and hands in her lap, looking vaguely nauseated.

“We’re ready,” said Dee.

There was nothing quite like the movement of a spaceship, even still in a pressurized environment. Kara forgot that this trip was anything but her idea as they moved out, and as space appeared ahead, offering a cool and thorough embrace. The airlock closed behind them, and Sharon made sure everything locked in. Kara glanced at the controls on her side, but wasn’t expecting to see anything.

“And, we are ready for departure,” Sharon said into her headset. The affirmative crackled over the radio, which Kara now settled lightly over her ear. Then the outer airlock doors opened, and Sharon released the last brake.

There was a bump on takeoff, and Kara surreptitiously gripped the side of her chair, her peripheral telling her that Sharon’s pursed lips meant that she at least knew about the error. That was the main problem with Raptors, you were never sure to get the control seat. Karl said it made for more efficiency, and promoted cooperation. Of course, they’d always been a little tipsy when the discussion went that way, so Kara did not think she’d heard the best explanation. Regardless, Vipers had an individual charm that needed no cooperation for harmonization. Kara wouldn’t say it out loud, but it was what she was thinking as the Raptor flew out of Galactica.

There was nothing around them now as Galactica orbited Tauron, the refueling ship having moved along. A fair distance out, Sharon steadied the Raptor in space.

“Galactica, this is Boomer, Raptor 204,” she said into her radio. “Permission to carry out mission 31845?”

The voice that would usually have been Dee’s drifted back. “Permission granted, Boomer. Carry on.”

Sharon—and Kara stopped for a second to wonder how she’d gotten the callsign ‘Boomer’ exactly—flicked her transmitter off, then looked back at the rest of her crew. “Okay, we’re going to start off with a test jump, just a couple hundred meters. Ready?”

“Yes sir,” Dee answered, at the same time as Cally.

Kara watched the controls, half interested as Sharon carefully set coordinates in place as the FTL wound up. Kara liked the sound, the feel, of the FTL. It was what she fondly called space magic, and made her feel alive.

“And...mark,” Sharon said.

A pulsing, contracting, and then they were in another part of space. She glanced at the controls at the same time as Sharon.

“Slightly off course, as expected,” Sharon said. “Readings up here look accurate, though. Dee?”

“Hmm,” came the communications officer’s voice behind them, and the rapid clicking of computer keys. “I’m collating the jump data now.”

Kara glanced back after a second, saw Cally looking a little pale but not as tense now that the jump was over, and she was tapping her fingers on her knees.

Dee’s lips were neatly pressed together as she scanned the screen. “Nothing in particular here,” she said slowly. “Can’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t be too hasty an assumption to consider a physical malfunction at this point. Cally?”

Cally perked a little, standing up. “Can I get some help with the compartment door?”

Dee turned from her computer to help.

Kara had no interest in repairs, really, and she turned back to Sharon who also had nothing to do now, until there was any news. Kara didn’t prop her feet up in front of her, but she did move the lever to scoot her seat, leaning back and putting a hand behind her head. “So, how’d you end up on this joy ride?”

Sharon glanced at her, slightly awkward. “Everyone else had missions already scheduled.”

“Lowest on the roster,” Kara translated, nodding.

“It’s only my third day on Galactica,” Sharon said, a bit of a fluster about her. “Or any battlestar.”

“First battlestar, nice,” Kara said, going easy on her. “Galactica was mine too, going on six months now.”

Sharon’s bit of hasty defense wavered, and Kara waited, much preferring her conversations to be a little less like interviews. There would be a time to needle her later, once it was all good fun in the rec room. “So, it doesn’t take that long to fit in?” Sharon asked hopefully.

Kara laughed. “Oh, this is my first battlestar, not first post. I was probably teaching Basic Flight right around when you were graduating.”

“You taught, really?” Sharon asked, curious and much less tense, eyes finally meeting Kara’s.

Not that Kara was in the habit of talking about this, but hey, it was no secret either. “Snatched right out of my graduating class,” she said, a slight grin coming as the memory surfaced. “The morons thought I had a particular kind of talent.” Better for leading, not so great on the following. Kara’d always figured, with a perverse pleasure, that the move was as much for the fleet’s benefit as for hers in staying out of it.

“But you...didn’t?” Sharon asked cautiously.

Kara paused, and there was a reason this subject wasn’t her favorite. She glanced out the windshield for a second before answering. “Oh, I was hella good, just not enough to do it long-term. The Old Man offered me a place here, I took it. Knew Karl from way back, so transition was easy.” She added a slight finality to the words, pushing aside memories.

Thankfully, Sharon got the hint. “Karl’s a good man,” she said, nodding.

“He likes to give that impression, yeah,” Kara answered, throwing her a sudden grin. “You still haven’t said how you got here.”

But as Sharon opened her mouth, Dee poked her head from the back. “We’re about ready to give it another go.”

With a nod, Sharon turned quickly back to the controls to input another minor jump. Kara glanced out the window, waited for the pulse, and again they’d moved. However, the unplanned shift was even more significant now. She frowned at the controls. “Shifty. Right.”

“Whoa, hey, what was that?” Sharon asked, looking back at the technicians.

“Maybe we’re going the wrong direction with the adjustments,” Cally offered.

“I’m not sure these readings are right after all,” Dee said, a frown in her voice. “But it’s just a little bug, if anything. I can do a basic cleanup so we can finish with diagnostics, then Gaeta can do a full sweep of the program when we get back.”

“There was another thing we could try with the engine,” Cally said, “Because I don’t think we were wrong, there’s something off about this drive.”

Kara’s eyebrow wavered in its high position. “Don’t—kill us,” she cautioned dryly.

Dee and Cally barely nodded before ignoring her and getting on with their work. Kara knew that they were competent, but still, they were as close as Galactica got to dregs for something as pointless as this kind of job.

“Does this happen often?” Sharon asked in a low voice.

Kara smiled at her, glad for the diversion. “Weren’t you told? Galactica kisses the ass of the totem pole, so we get all the sucky equipment. Everything’s old, crappy, and getting spare parts is a pain. If Karl’s whining is anything to go by.”

Sharon gave a light laugh. “Sounds like where I grew up.”

“Or my apartment planet-side,” Kara said, tipping her head towards Sharon. “Guess we have a thing for sad sorry messes.”

“Well, fixing them,” Sharon added. Kara noticed that she was settled back in her seat, and without the tension of the need to perform, she looked a lot more professional; too bad for her that she didn’t seem to know.

“You don’t fix Galactica, though,” Kara said with a fondness wavering in her voice. She patted the side of her seat. “Sometimes being broken is its own charm.”

Sharon gave her a strange look and a half smile.

“Okay, I think I’m ready for another test,” Cally reported from the back, and both Kara and Sharon turned to see.

“Just a second,” Dee said, “and I’ll have a workable jump program. It’s cleaning up fairly well; I think we have a maintenance problem, that’s all.” She frowned a little at the screen, then added a few lightning-fast key-clicks.

Kara pursed her lips, tapping the edge of her seat.

“Jump ready,” Dee said a minute later, leaning back and glancing to Cally.

Sharon looked to Cally, who still had the engine panel open.

“I need to watch the workings,” Cally said with a shrug.

“Okay, let’s try this again,” Sharon said, turning back around in her seat. She input the coordinates, blinked a little, then glanced at Kara. “When you said this happened often, did you mean missions like this?”

Kara chuckled. “Only if you stay at the bottom rung.” Of course, the variety wasn’t always the pleasant kind, but no point in frightening the girl...

The jump pulse was immediately followed by a loud zap, and a sharp cry from Cally. Kara and Sharon quickly twisted in their seats, looking back. Cally had flown back from the engine, hitting the wall, grabbing at her arm. “Frak!” she said in a tight, high voice.

Sharon swallowed nervously.

“Cally?” Dee asked, concerned, stepping from the computer.

“Frak!” Cally swore again, cradling her hand, and Kara could see a red welt forming. “No, I’m fine, it just hurts like hell.”

Kara knew exactly what that felt like, having slammed her head against a Viper cockpit on multiple occasions in response to faulty wiring. But Cally was right, it wasn’t too much a danger. She turned back in her seat, calling as she did so, “Hey—hey, Sharon, mission command here.”

The controls seemed off again, but out of the corner of her eye Kara saw something that wasn’t Galactica. She frowned, about to look up.

“Oh gods,” Sharon breathed out, eyes fixated by the window.

Kara just stared at the sight in front of them, the deep blue of the planet beneath swirling white clouds, that was most definitely not the Tauron landscape they’d been viewing until moments ago. The outrageousness of the situation was going to impress her in a moment, she knew, but right now— “I’m not always able to say this, but I’m completely sober and yet that looks suspiciously like Aquaria.”

“Did you say Aquaria?” Dee asked behind them, stunned.

Sharon was shaking her head, breathing a little off, a near-frenzy in the way she looked at the control buttons. “We jumped way off course this time, but all I did was input return coordinates; the computer does it automatically, so there’s no error.”

Kara could confirm that at least. Dee had stepped up towards the cockpit, and gasped.

“Dee, what the hell did you do to the computer?” Kara demanded.

“Look, this shouldn’t be possible,” Sharon insisted, throwing up her hands. “The system is supposed to stop any jump if there’s even a threat of malfunction.”

Kara’s eyes kept darting back to the giant planet that they were just barely orbiting, that shouldn’t be there.

“It isn’t a malfunction,” Dee said, scratching her head. “The data’s perfectly accurate, which it wasn’t last time. According to the computer, the bug was fixed.”

Kara chortled—oh yes, the humor was definitely hitting her now. “This is like a weekend special movie,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What, did we get zapped to an alternate universe?”

“We are right above Aquaria,” Sharon answered, tapping at the computer screen. “The back side of Aquaria, no civilization, but it’s got all the normal readings.”

“Um, sirs?” Cally’s voice drifted up, nervous. “We’ve got a huge problem here.”

All three heads darted back.

“The engine here’s making all sorts of weird noises and they aren’t good ones,” Cally said, with a deep breath. A spark and a whine burst in to emphasize her point.

Kara snapped to emergency mode; she knew this too well. “We do not want that thing to blow up,” she ordered. “Valerii, get us landed now; we get out, figure the rest out there.”

“There’s nothing near enough,” Sharon said, eyes wide, waving at the board in front of her.

“Not civilization, just a scrap of land,” Kara elaborated shortly.

Sharon barely needed a second, and then they were almost in a free fall, the atmosphere burning past them.

“Crap, this is not good!” Cally said behind them, as the Raptor structure shuddered a little around them, and the FTL drive buzzed and continued to whine.

“We’ll make it,” Dee said over the noise.

The planet’s surface started flying up towards them, a vast expanse of ocean. Kara remembered how much she hated water and water worlds.

“Sharon?” Kara tried to gauge her projectory.

“It’s just a little island, we can land just fine,” Sharon insisted.

Seconds might matter, though—Kara didn’t think twice as she unbuckled. “Get to the back,” she ordered, and with nothing more than a widening of her eyes, Sharon slipped out of her seat and obeyed. Kara usually went for the improv, but she did know how to lock in a flightpath, and did it in a few short seconds.

“Are we going to jump out?” Cally asked as Kara came back and looked the door up and down.

“Safety precaution,” Kara said over the chaos of noise around them, with a wild grin.

“Oh gods,” Dee muttered, as they all positioned themselves by the door. Kara looked up towards the windshield, counted down the seconds.

“Be glad it’s a beach!” Kara called, a cackle of perverse humor at all this, as she turned the handle of the Raptor door. Oh yes, this was the kind of mission she did well on.

The Raptor barely leveled off before Kara saw an opening, and waved her arm. “Out, out, out!”

Cally first, then Dee, then Sharon, then Kara leapt out and met the wind with her face. They were a few feet above ground, a Raptor malfunctioning above them, out in the middle of nowhere.


	2. Chapter 2

Kara groaned and rolled over on her back, coughing a little. Not a bad landing, considering. The thick saltgrass, and the white sand below it, was as cushioning as anything, and Kara hadn’t even fallen in proper form.

She waggled her fingers and toes, felt no pain, and slowly sat up. “Frak you to hell, Tigh,” she muttered to herself, shaking the soreness from her limbs.

Strange as it was, she stood up to meet the force of a sea breeze and a bright summer sun shining down on her. Already she missed the feel of the deck beneath her feet, but this was like a piece of paradise. She could see a long white beach off in the distance, but nothing but a huge sand ridge on the other side.

And their Raptor. Lodged neatly in a sand dune, it had not exploded. Yet, but still. Kara wondered about the rest of the crew, then.

“Dee?” she called, walking towards the Raptor. “Cally, Valerii?”

“Agh,” came a voice to her left, and she saw Dee’s dark head just as her sarcastic voice added, “Great idea, Kara.”

Kara gave a tight grin as she offered a hand to Dee. “Live to snark another day, Dee.”

“How far did we fall?” Dee asked, putting a hand to her back, flexing it with a slight grimace. “No, wait, I don’t think I want to know.”

Cally and Sharon had been blown by the wind a few yards beyond, but were in fair shape as well. They all stood on top of a small dune, looking over at the Raptor.

“Sorry, I guess it didn’t blow up,” Cally said, arms crossed over her chest to keep her welt from being hit by the wind.

“Apologize for that again and I might hit you,” Dee said warmly, nudging her.

Kara laughed, but Sharon’s brow was deeply furrowed.

“That wasn’t our only problem,” Sharon said with a slight sigh.

Kara glanced around, took a deep breath. “Okay, right. So, our jump took us way off course, we aren’t exactly sure why. We landed on a desert island, thousands and thousands of miles from civilization. I say we have a nice little picnic, work on the Raptor when we’re refreshed.”

Cally gave her a little smile, even as she still had a tight, pained look.

Sharon gave her a hairy eyeball, however. “If it’s not an actual emergency, then every minute we’re gone and Galactica is assuming it’s an emergency is a minute we’re wasting of both our times.”

“That’s true, Kara,” Dee said, breathing out, resting a hand on her hip.

Kara nodded. “Yeah, well, it was just a thought.”

“Dee, can you contact anyone on the other side of Aquaria, maybe?” Sharon asked, brightening a little.

“Possibly,” Dee said.

“Then let’s go make sure that the engine is not going to explode, and we can work on that,” Sharon said, nodding.

“You’re the boss,” Kara said, shrugging. Sharon had been right and they couldn’t just delay for no reason...still, it wasn’t as if there was a danger yet, and the sun did feel good.

Approaching the Raptor with no small amount of consternation, Cally confirmed that now that the engine had automatically shut down, it wasn’t going to overload. Dee climbed in, started bringing the radio system back up online and slipped on her headset.

Kara sat with Sharon on the sand dune outside, stretching a little where she was still sore from the fall.

Cally eyed the engine as if she might tell what was wrong with her eyes only. “I’m gonna kill Chief for making me do this,” she muttered darkly after a second.

Kara glanced back at her. “Oh really?”

“Well, first he knows that jumps make me sick,” Cally said, turning around, a spark in her dark eyes. “And then he said that this was going to be routine check-ups, something he couldn’t spare time for.”

Sharon laughed. “At least that last part was almost true.”

“He’s getting lax,” snorted Cally, sitting next to them, kicking absently at the soft sand with her boot.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll talk to him when we get back,” Sharon said with a smile and a nod.

Kara looked up into the strong sunshine, felt it warm her skin. “If Chief had known, or planned, this little computer bug, you’d be sure that he’d have volunteered to crashland on the tropical island.”

“True!” Cally said with a snicker.

Kara felt like kicking off her shoes, but didn’t, especially as Dee’s voice finally came from behind.

“Guys, I’ve got voices.” They all climbed into the Raptor as Dee put it on speakers. “The radio won’t go long distance, but I have short signals, and this one is coming from the other side of this island.”

“The uninhabited island?” Sharon asked skeptically.

“Officially uninhabited,” said Kara, a little more darkly. She was getting a feeling that she knew what that probably meant.

The radio prickled. “Two, such investigations will be a waste of time—they are not part of the plan.” “Do we not all know the entire plan, do we not all know that?” “Six has wasted my time enough. Two, stay at your post.”

“What is that about?” Cally asked curiously.

“Some weird numbering system, apparently,” Sharon offered, arms crossed as she leaned in towards the radio.

“But why?” Cally asked further.

“It is kind of the habit of illegal operations to be less than clear,” Kara said dryly.

They all looked up at her, and she realized just how young they all were—even Dee—she felt like she was back at the Academy with nuggets looking to her.

“Off the grid screams illegitimate,” Kara snorted. “These people probably stole a space-worthy ship, made an outpost here, and are carrying out illegal activities.”

“You mean they’re pirates?” asked Dee, giving her a steady look.

“Don’t tell me you never thought about doing it,” Kara said back with a hint of a grin. “And pirates, smugglers, terrorists, insider traders...whoever they are, they don’t live on the bright side of life. Literally.”

“Which means we can’t go to them for help,” Sharon concluded, looking grim and putting a hand to her head, brushing back a stray hair.

“Not without better numbers, weapons, equipment, and a willingness for things to get bloody,” Kara said with a dance of eyebrows.

“Yeah, not happening,” Sharon said.

“We shouldn’t even need help, though,” Cally insisted suddenly. “The FTL drive isn’t dead yet, and surely Dee knows how to fix any programming errors, if we have time.”

“That’s not a certainty, but yes, we have a chance,” Dee admitted, nodding.

Kara almost opened her mouth, but then caught Sharon biting the inside of her lip. Kara held back the words, not knowing exactly why, but deciding to respect Sharon’s command for now.

“I never said we had to ask for help from the criminals,” she said, though, crossing her arms lightly across her chest.

Sharon looked up at her, surprised. “What?”

“Kara, this isn’t a game,” warned Dee.

“Hey, I don’t take criminals lightly, even if they are dumb enough to keep their radio channels unencrypted,” Kara retorted. “But there’s four of us, with weapons and a military fighter ship. There could be a way that we can take what we need.”

“Hey, we’re not going that far yet,” Sharon broke in, putting up her hand. “I get where you’re coming from, Captain Thrace, but we don’t even know if it’ll need to be that drastic. Dee and the specialist can work on getting our ship running, you and me will go get more intelligence on what our surroundings and situation are.”

“Exactly what I was going for, actually,” Kara said with a smile. She added a half salute. “Yes sir.”

“Take radios, then,” Dee said, handing over one of them. “I’ll keep track of the—well, we can call them enemy for now. I’ll keep track of their communications, let you know if there’s anything you should watch for.”

Kara rolled her eyes at Dee, but Sharon took the radio anyways. Making sure her gun was still clipped at her side, Kara followed her out the Raptor and towards the mysterious radio noise.

The wind flitting through the grass hid the sounds of their boots crunching as they walked up the ridge, keeping an eye out for anything odd, but in Kara’s case not expecting it. This was hardly out of the ordinary, unless you defined ordinary as only what Galactica usually did.

“This feels a bit odd,” Sharon said under her breath as they climbed a steeper portion of the ridge, boots aiding very little with the crumbly ground and driftwood. “Like those war training videos they had in the Academy; surreal.”

Kara hoisted herself up, pausing for a second to make sure of the bearings. “You joined the military but didn’t expect war?”

“It’s peacetime, it was just a job,” Sharon said, as they moved forward again, crouching a little as they reached the high point of this part of the island.

Kara said nothing; she’d been fighting people with that attitude for years now.

“Well, okay, maybe I expected something,” Sharon added, pleasantly surprising Kara a little. “But I thought the Cylons would break the truce, or something, and it’d be space battles. Nothing like this.”

Kara breathed out, jaw tensing with focus. “War doesn’t let you pick the style; you gotta take what it gives, don’t throw it back unless you’ve added a booby-trap.”

“So you can handle any type of war?” Sharon asked pointedly.

“If I have weaknesses, I’m not going to be broadcasting them,” Kara said, smirking. “But in this case, guerilla warfare was a study of mine after Vipers. I can snipe with the best of them.”

“Why?” Sharon asked.

“Because it was fun,” Kara said, with a light chuckle. “So is this, right up my alley.”

Sharon paused as they came to the edge of the ridge. Kara got down on her hands and knees, sliding up to the edge on her stomach, Sharon slightly behind.

“Dee, got anything?” Sharon asked over the radio. Kara glanced back to hear the answer.

“Nothing important, nothing much of anything really.”

Sharon put the radio back and scooted up next to Kara so they could look down.

“That’s our smugglers,” Kara whispered. The ridge slanted down, not as steeply as it could have, curving around an area about half a mile across. Low buildings glinted with metal in silver and black, three of them in an inverted L shape from this angle. Neatly built to look very ambiguous, Kara thought. “Or pirates. I really can’t tell from this distance.”

Sharon pulled out a pair of small binoculars, and Kara glanced around for signs of the personnel they’d heard. She saw a dark figure silhouetted against the light grass nearest to them, and maybe a flicker of a couple more farther out. This distance, though, she couldn’t tell weaponry or uniform. “Anything?” she asked Sharon.

“The guard nearest has a standard Colonial automatic, most recent version,” Sharon said.

Kara raised an eyebrow. “Weapons dealers, maybe?”

“He’s in some kind of casual clothes, though that red vest might be bullet resistant,” Sharon commented.

Kara frowned, reached for the binoculars. The man was either old or blonde, given the color of his helmet-less head and scruffy facial hair; he moved easily enough, so Kara guessed the latter. “Definitely bullet resistant,” she said, nodding. “He’s an idiot, though; that’s mostly civilian gear.” She swept the binoculars up to the far side of the camp.

“I couldn’t get a good glimpse of those guards,” Sharon said.

Kara couldn’t either; the compound looked fairly low key. “Well, I wouldn’t bet on those buildings being simply warehouses, given their construction,” she said in a low tone, giving the binoculars back. “So let’s guess a few more guards at points inside, maybe no more than twenty people in all? At least at this time.”

“Boomer, sir?” came Cally’s voice over the radio.

Sharon ducked, cradling it to her face. “Yes, specialist?”

“We’ve got good news,” Cally continued. “Dee says she can’t completely fix the bug, but it shouldn’t prove a problem if we can fix the FTL drive and add a slight reroute.”

“It’s broken, then?” Sharon asked, not looking terribly enthused yet.

“Well, not completely. But if we want to get off this world safely, we’ll need a part for that, and then a different one for the reroute to make sure we can jump safely.”

Kara raised an eyebrow, not sure that sounded quite ‘good’, more ‘okay’, but she wasn’t going to get into semantics when Dee was somewhere on the other line.

Kara grabbed the radio from Sharon as Sharon seemed to pause. “Look, these guys are going to blow military out of the sky if we show up on their doorstep and ask for help, and if they find our Raptor, it’ll be the same.”

“The part’s pretty common on all kinds of basic machinery,” Cally said.

“And some artillery pieces,” Dee added.

“Well, we’ve got the resources, then, just not at hand,” Kara said with a shrug of her shoulders. She handed the radio back to Sharon.

Sharon bit her lip, opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

Kara had a moment where she didn’t know what to do, but that didn’t last long. Sharon didn’t understand this kind of war, she’d said it herself. They were facing a life or death situation if they were discovered, which would happen eventually unless they could stop it. Success called for action. Kara grabbed the radio again.

“Okay, listen everyone, we’re making this work ASAP. Sharon and I are headed back to the Raptor, we’ll discuss strategy then.” Kara ended the transmission and tucked the radio in her belt, then started backing down from the ridge. “I said this was my specialty; I wasn’t joking.”

“Okay, that’s good,” said Sharon as she skidded down after her.

Kara took that as delegation and had not even the hint of a qualm about hijacking this command. She ran a few quick strategies through her head as they moved, but as they made it back in a little more than half the time it had taken them to get up, there wasn’t a lot of time. There was also no further information over the enemy’s radio, and apparently they still hadn’t investigated the Raptor falling out of the sky, assuming they’d noted it and known what it was.

Cally sat in the back of the Raptor with Dee; the latter had given Cally a gun, and she was passing it back and forth between her hands with slight nervousness, but a determined glint in her eyes. Dee just had a hand to her ear, still listening, still waiting.

Kara climbed in, leaned against the computer console and waited a second for Sharon. “Have we organized our supplies?” she asked first, looking to Dee.

“Standard Raptor kit,” Dee said, nodding.

“Okay, so we have a few stun grenades, some tranq darts, and a few rounds of basic shot for our weapons,” Kara said, crisp tone as she calculated quickly, tapping one finger in the air. “We’ve also got a compound with at least three external guards, probably more inside, but not too many given communications and size. It’s something military, we’re assuming, and so we can all but call it a fact that they’ll have the part we need.”

Frowning a little, she added, “Dee, can you draw me up a schematic?”

Dee nodded, coming over to the computer and pulling up a program. Kara rattled off some estimated sizes, and a few seconds later, Dee had a rough model. Kara called back in her memory for the entrance/exit points and added them in, revising her calculations in a second.

“We’re supposed to break into that?” Cally asked disbelievingly.

Kara put up her hand. “No rushing. Now, these guys are pretty lax, not surprising given how far off the grid they are. I’m not sure why they didn’t notice the Raptor, unless they thought it was a meteor, which I think are fairly common on Aquaria. Or maybe they don’t think it’s worth checking out yet. Anyways, their security isn’t dramatic yet.”

“Of course, it would be in their best interests to have it look that way no matter what,” Dee said, leaning back in her chair by the computer.

“There’s no way they could hide it that quickly, not with the kind of landscape out there,” Sharon put in before Kara could speak.

“Not external security, certainly,” Kara said, nodding to her. “And external is where they’ll pinch us, if they can. Dee, Sharon, either of you good shots?”

Dee raised her hand. “From a safe position, yes.”

“That’s what I’ll need,” Kara said. “Okay, so, Dee and I will take down the guards, while Sharon and—Cally, right?—get to the nearest entrance. Sharon sends a grenade in, uses tranqs on anyone else in the near vicinity, and gets Cally to where she can grab the parts we need.”

“I can probably shoot if I have to,” Cally said.

“Until it’s necessary, it’d be easier if you stayed focused,” Sharon advised.

“Exactly,” Kara said, pointing her finger. “We want speed and direction. Much as a brawl’s my usual color, that’s not what we’re after. Sharon can provide more than enough protection, assuming the plan works.”

“What else is there to the plan?” Sharon asked, brow furrowed.

“Well, Dee will be keeping track on the radio, so we’ll know where to step in as soon as they mobilize,” Kara said. “We keep the reinforcements off your back and hold the exit open for you. Then we hop back to the ship and get off this planet. How long would it take to get the engine running?”

“Three minutes,” Cally said, after a brief glance to Dee. “She got the program arranged, and I have everything else set up already.”

Kara nodded. Something told her that there were quite a few variables, especially the interior of these complexes. She looked at Sharon and Cally, saw two very raw soldiers, no matter how much strength of will they seemed to have. But there was Dee, and she had a head on her shoulders that wasn’t disapproving entirely of Kara’s plan.

What really sunk the deal was when she looked back at the model that Dee had built on screen, and something just felt right. She nodded again, to herself. She had a good feeling; she wasn’t going to thwart that.

“Okay, gear up, I want to be out of here in a few minutes,” she said finally.

She barely noticed that Sharon automatically saluted her with a “Yes sir” too. The mission certainly wasn’t the same as it had been a mere half hour ago.

Kara grabbed the sniper attachment from the Raptor’s kit, then walked out into the sun to prepare it, shaking her right hand loosely as she did so. Glancing up at the sun, she calculated angle and distance. It’d been a while since she’d done this; in fact, the last time she’d held a gun outside of a firing range had been a recreational battle with Karl and Crash and Maggie and red paintballs.

“Captain Thrace?”

She glanced around, rifle half assembled, and saw Sharon standing there.

“Call me Kara—what is it?”

Sharon stepped a little closer, a tightness at the corner of her mouth. “I know you haven’t really said it, but this is war, right? These people could kill us.”

“Believe me, they’re not going to get the chance,” Kara said, snapping the longer barrel onto the gun.

“Hey, don’t talk to me like that,” Sharon protested.

Kara raised an eyebrow.

“Look, you’re leading now, I get it,” Sharon said, low and sharp, arms lightly crossed over her chest. “It’s good—I can’t do it here. But I’m not going to ignore my instincts, and I know that things could get rough. Maybe they don’t need to know, but I do. We’re splitting up. What do you want me to do if the worst happens?”

Kara flicked the last switch on her gun, and popped in the ammo, brow drawn. She didn’t usually like being surprised on missions, but Sharon was doing it the good way. “The worst happens is that you and Cally have to take down the enemy,” she said.

Sharon opened her mouth.

“We’re getting the part, we’re all getting out, and it’s not going to be a big deal,” Kara said before Sharon could continue.

Sharon gave her a long look, then nodded. “Yes sir. Simple mission.”

Kara threw her a grin that was almost a grimace. “It helps if you have more confidence.”

Sharon just turned and walked off, still nodding slightly.

Kara felt the smooth surface of the gun in her hand, gave a brief glance down the sight. This was a simple mission; no point in worrying. It wasn’t like the worlds were at stake.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun had scarcely moved from its former spot as all four of them crested the ridge, crawling on their bellies. Silently, Kara waved Sharon and Cally to her right, and then Dee to her left. They moved off, and Kara settled her gun into a hollow, nestling it where she could get a good shot. The sight didn’t give much range of vision, but she found the main guard, still pacing.

Glancing to her right, Sharon and Cally were making good time down the ridge near to the side of the building, flanked by a slight swell of the ridge. Kara couldn’t even see where Dee had gotten to on her left.

A few seconds later, her radio buzzed. “Checkpoint reached,” Dee’s voice came in quietly. “There are two rear guards, and I think I can hit them both. One might go around the corner, though; Kara can get that one, though.”

“Okay, we’re ready to step in,” Sharon’s voice chimed in afterwards.

“Five count, then,” Kara said, bringing her eye to the sight. “Begin count in three, two, one, mark.” She had her crosshairs centered on the guard as she counted down from five, then, trigger pulled. She’d aimed right for the thigh, unguarded. He jerked, spun around, gun raised, put a hand to his chest as if for a radio, then fell.

“Sharon, Cally, target down, move in,” Kara ordered quickly, scanning the horizon.

“Guards both down, barely,” Dee’s voice followed.

Kara waited, watched as Sharon and Cally darted towards the building, then glanced at her stopwatch and marked the time. She moved down the slope quickly, the sand falling under her feet, almost sending her falling a couple times.

“No one inside, yet; the compound’s pretty open,” Sharon’s whisper came in over the radio.

“Just find the parts we need,” Kara ordered back quickly. She reached the floor of the valley where the compound was just ahead of her. Passing the guard she’d tranquilized, not even bothering to look down at him, she pulled up outside the door that Sharon and Cally had used. It was tall and wide, almost too heavy for a human to open manually. Positioning herself at the corner, she could just barely see into the building, but couldn’t place anything in particular.

Time was wasting, and even though nothing sounded on the radio yet, Kara didn’t trust that reinforcements wouldn’t be on the way. Her trigger finger tensed, ears ready for any sound.

Her radio spiked and she almost jolted.

“Kara, enemy troops,” Sharon gasped through. “We got the first wave, but—”

Her voice broke off.

Kara was moving in, one hand on her trigger, the other on the radio. “I’m coming in; Dee, get to my exit, now!”

She kicked the door open, darted through the metal crates in the warehouse-like room, saw the split in the aisle ahead where the warehouse ended. A hand moving to her belt as she ran, she found the real ammo and replaced the tranqs in her gun.

A body lay on the floor, a woman in a kind of military gear, gun and vest, darkened safety goggles obscuring her face and contrasting with the white-blonde curl peeking from underneath. Kara saw the blood pooling out, and knew that Sharon had handled it.

Another body lay a few feet off as Kara heard sounds, turned into the room full of open machinery and spare parts.

Sharon spun around, gun ready, eyes sharp, but lifted her aim as soon as Kara appeared.

“Status,” Kara said sharply, coming forward.

“We got them before they got close to us,” Sharon said, looking over and down to where Cally was standing and ripping wires out of what looked like a mortar launcher. “Cally was amazing, she put most of a clip into the second one before I even saw him, so I don’t think they had time to send any communications.”

Kara lifted her eyebrow, but seeing the fierce look on the small mechanic’s face, it didn’t stay a surprise. “Parts?”

“We got the first one,” Sharon said, digging in her pocket and pulling out a small spanner shaped item.

Kara started moving back, grabbing the spanner and tucking it in. “I’ll get the perimeter, clear it for you when you have the second one. Speed, people!”

She moved back out, seeing and hearing nothing as she reached the exit of the warehouse again. The door had swung closed, and she wrenched it open, eyes scanning the outside in a second.

It was all clear before she heard a choking sound from her left. Her gun went faster than her eyes, and it was the guard she’d tranquilized at first. She swore loudly, because there was no way a normal human should have been able to recover that fast, and Dee had assumed the same. He’d snuck behind her, wrenched her gun arm out of the way, put a gun to her throat and held her as a shield, small as she was.

“Don’t move!” Kara ordered, mind spinning, jaw tightened. She could see Dee’s panic, but she was struggling, her moves just what they should be in the situation.

The guard seemed to have no trouble holding her, and didn’t notice Dee’s kicks, his body twisted enough away that she couldn’t strike with her free arm. “This isn’t how it should be,” he said through gritted teeth.

Kara couldn’t read his expression behind the scruffy blonde beard, but his eyes stared straight at her, piercing and strange. He looked crazed. She swallowed, keeping her aim on his face, almost ready to brave his gun at Dee’s head.

“Kara—” Dee gasped out, still struggling, still twisting against the man’s grip on her.

“This isn’t your stream to travel along,” the man said in an oddly calm voice. “Our paths shouldn’t be meeting. Drop the gun.”

Dee’s right leg kicked out wildly, and the man twisted slightly, adjusting his grip. The broad shoulder of his gun arm, unprotected by his vest, was laid open. He might be crazy, and crazy strong, but he wasn’t perfect.

“Not a chance, motherfrakker,” Kara said with a slight cock of her head, and she sent a bullet straight to his shoulder. The man’s gun hand shifted, the barrel leaving Dee’s temple. She ducked her head, drawing to the side, and Kara shot him in the thigh.

The man grunted, his arm loosening. Dee slammed her elbow into his gut and darted forward, picking up the gun she’d dropped and breathing heavily. Sending a bullet into the man’s other thigh, Kara stepped forward, kicking his gun away, and kicking his face in. She grabbed the gun, running back to the exit.

“Thanks,” Dee said, slightly breathless as she took up her defense position again.

“Part of the mission,” Kara said shortly, with a shrug, shaking off the weirdness of this whole thing. A few more minutes and they should be out.

“Kara, get in here, now!” Sharon’s voice was sharp, not so much ordering as needing.

Glancing to Dee, Kara gritted her teeth and didn’t come forward. “Sharon, we’re a bit busy guarding your asses!”

“They’re developing nukes here.”

“Shit!” Kara cursed automatically. Dee’s eyes widened. This changed things; no wonder they didn’t seem like your ordinary smugglers.

“It’s not far enough that they’ll explode, so shouldn’t we—Kara, we can’t just leave!”

This was not supposed to happen, none of this. It was beyond any mission parameters, so far beyond even command parameters. But they only had one opportunity, and Kara considered defense just a moment before preemptive offense.

“You have the part?” she demanded over the radio.

“Kara, the radio chatter’s growing strong, they know we’re here in the other buildings, they’re on their way,” Dee reported from across the way.

“We’re all ready to go,” Sharon answered.

Kara spoke firmly into the speaker. “Have Cally set charges for the C4 you have in your belt, come out with the detonator.”

“Understood!” Sharon’s voice answered.

“What are we doing, Kara?” Dee asked, as Kara started stepping back, heading up for the ridge.

“We’re blowing the hell out of this place,” Kara said, waving her hand for Dee to follow, backing up as they eyed the horizon. “Confusion ensues, we might get a few of their reinforcements, and we don’t have to come back to deal with this problem later.” As the words came out, she knew that they were wartime ones, but frak it all, survival was a war and these might as well be terrorists they faced.

Dee didn’t say anything, just stood a few feet from Kara, gun ready.

They saw Sharon and Cally rush out a few seconds later, sprinting across the sand between them. Kara took the detonator from Sharon as they started running up the hill, as Dee relieved Cally of the part, helping her up the slope, still breathless from their run across the warehouse.

“Move, move, move!” Kara ordered, and before they were at the top of the ridge, she’d pressed the red button.

The entire island seemed to shift under them, sound blasting their ears, a heatwave coming only a second behind, the last push they needed to get up over the ridge. The first building’s explosion had set off a chain reaction in something, and it had blasted out to the second one as well.

“Don’t look back,” Kara ordered, pushing her people in front of her as they ran. No time to think about the fact that they had just executed a kill order without authorization, no time to think about the fact that they’d just used all that training that they weren’t supposed to have to use in peacetime.

Stumbling, half tripping, down the other side of the ridge, they saw the Raptor ahead of them, still undiscovered.

“Their radio’s all over the place!” Dee said through gulping breaths, as they leaned against the door.

“Cally!” Kara ordered sharply, knowing that they needed the mechanic if all of them were to get off this stupidly dangerous island. She handed over the part in her pocket, Dee leaning in to help Cally with the other one.

Cally’s hands were shaking, probably with exertion as much as the fear in her wide eyes, judging by the sweat running down her face and slicking her bangs to her forehead. But adrenaline worked wonders.

Kara climbed past them, getting into the pilot’s seat, Sharon following to take the other seat. Kara started the computer, commanded it to calculate a jump to near-Tauron space, not remembering if they’d fixed the glitch enough that they could risk anything closer.

“Kara, you have to bypass the tertiary checkpoints,” Dee called from the back.

As Kara’s hand hesitated above the buttons, her mind not focusing on the right term, Sharon leaned over, inputting the controls with urgency but with purpose.

“It helps to be a proper Raptor monkey,” she said, giving a Kara a tight smile as she sat back.

“Yes, it does,” Kara acknowledged, finishing the coordinates, breathing in deeply to get her mind back in the game. She could barely remember what the morning had been like before this adrenaline high entered her veins.

“It should work, we’ve got to go!” Cally suddenly cried, and Kara heard the slamming of the metal engine door.

“Computer systems active, and I don’t see anything coming for us,” Dee reported.

Kara’s hands found the levers and wheel before her mind fully remembered what she was doing, and with a bit of a jerk and a jolt, she started the engine, pulling them out of the sand bank and up to hover.

“No malfunctions yet,” Cally called, but Kara didn’t care.

The Raptor rose up, and Kara put it into the closest to full burn that it had, driving them up to the upper atmosphere and not caring the way the Raptor rattled and pressed them back against their seats even with inertial dampeners.

“We’re jumping!” she called, just as she pressed the final command.

The Raptor compressed, the world twisted, and then suddenly it was all silent and the space around them was nothing but black.

A collective exhalation filled the Raptor. Kara leaned back in her chair and felt a laugh escape her mouth.

“Just for thoroughness, we weren’t followed,” Dee said dryly from the back. “And we’re mostly where we should be.”

“Gods, I can’t believe we just did that,” Sharon said breathily, wiping her face still sweat-dampened.

Kara nodded, swallowing, clearing her throat. “Good job, people, good job.”

“You were fantastic, Cally!” Sharon said turning back.

“I’ll vouch for that too,” Dee added, as Kara turned back.

The mechanic looked pale, but she offered a wry smile.

“Chief did good to send you,” Kara said, feeling oddly proud of her. “And Dee, why the hell did you choose CIC work anyways? Your field work isn’t half bad.”

“I have no desire to live like this,” Dee said wryly, and Kara wasn’t surprised at all.  
 “It seems strange now that it’s all over,” Sharon said, and Kara saw that her eyes were still bright, even though she was breathing heavily. “What was all that?”

Kara shook her head. “No—don’t do that. Look, we were all caught in a tight space. We dealt with it.”

“But how are we going to brief it?” Sharon asked, sounding a little worried.

“We don’t,” Kara said shortly.

“What do you mean?” Dee asked, gaze narrowed.

“Look, the point is, we shouldn’t have gotten involved, according to the rules,” Kara said, leaning back a little in her chair and closing her eyes for a second. “We did, and yes, we made it through, and we don’t need to have anything on our consciences. But our records aren’t going to look great with vigilante reports on them, even if we come through the court martial clean.” She glanced back, saw sobered looks on the other three faces. She grinned a little, even with all the seriousness. “Not like I think reputation should matter, but in this matter, believe me, mum’s the word is going to be fine.”

“So we’re not going to mention to Adama or the CAG that we blew up a terrorist base?” Sharon asked, an eyebrow slightly raised.

“I’m not,” Kara said with a shrug.

“You know, I think I’m okay with that,” Cally said, her tone sounding suddenly easy, as if a burden had been lifted. “I’m not even sure what I did back there.”

“Okay, Kara, you’ve got a point,” Dee said, putting a hand to her forehead.

“We did good today, and we know it, and that matters a hell of a lot more than anything else in the world,” Kara said, knowing that they had to hear it, and she was the only one who would tell them it. “So, our Raptor crashed, we scavenged the parts we needed, and we’re back. None of you got injured, right?”

“Just did the injuring,” Cally said darkly.

Kara chuckled, long and low. “All right, let’s catch our breath then, and head back to the old bucket.”

“Thank you, Kara,” Sharon said after a second, giving Kara a close look.

“Don’t mention it,” Kara said, with a twist of her lips. “Seriously, because Tigh would have my ass in the brig if he knew I took your command while supposed to be on cooldown.”

“Well, I could tell him I basically loaned it to you, but that’s too much explanation,” Sharon said lightly.

Kara nodded. Cally and Dee were wiping up in the back, and they all handed back their weapons to be put into the Raptor kit. By the time those supplies were checked, the end of the month at the earliest, no one would be able to connect the loss of a couple clips of bullets and tranquilizers to them. The air got a little steamy with all the sweat, and after nearly a quarter of an hour, Kara was ready to get back to Galactica and a shower.

“Okay, the jump to Galactica should be really simple, even if we do go a little off course,” Dee said.

“And I think I know what to tell Chief about what was wrong with it in the first place,” Cally said, settling back into her seat, the color back in her face as it should be.

“Always nice when we can say mission accomplished,” Kara said with a final smirk.

“I’d better take pilot’s seat, then,” Sharon said, shrugging.

Kara switched places with Sharon, stretching her shoulder a little, and ready for the easy little ride back to the hangar. Sharon plotted the last jump, and a few seconds later, the familiar old battlestar was in their sights again.

As they explained their emergency to Galactica before being ordered to report to the hangar deck, Kara breathed in slowly and smiled. It had been a good day. Despite what had happened, it’d been better than she imagined.

The Raptor pulled in, and Sharon drove it around into the hangar.

“Bored out of your mind?” Chief asked with a grin as Cally stepped out first.

“Don’t speak to me, sir,” she said with good humor. “Or I might let loose some choice words...”

Chief laughed and clapped her on the back, not understanding her true meaning at all, exactly as she’d intended. “Okay, give me your report then. And Lt.?”

“Sure thing, Chief,” Sharon said, following him and Cally, only tossing a last final look of thanks to Kara.

“I’ll just get the computer data to Gaeta so he can do a proper cleanup of the system,” Dee said to Kara as she hopped out, glad to feel the deck beneath her feet. “Oh, and Kara?”

Kara turned to her, hands in her pockets. “Hmm?”

“I’ve started to notice a pattern on all the missions where you accompany me,” Dee said with a wry quirk.

“Sure you have,” Kara said back, drier than a fresh cracker.

“See you around, then,” Dee said, a warm undertone of relieved humor in her voice.

Kara walked off, hands in her pockets, breathing in the not-so-distasteful indoor air of Galactica. Somehow, the magic of that little desert island had vanished from her mind. She caught a glimpse of Tigh as she walked towards the locker room—they gave curt nods, and carried on. Things were good there again, although just a tiny part of her wanted to see what kind of bluster he’d give if she gave a full report.

For that matter, though, she wasn’t treating it lightly. With no regrets, maybe, but it hadn’t been an ideal outcome. She’d decry the existence of ‘ideal’ for a long time yet, but the part of her that wanted to be the best still ate at the value of her success.

She stripped to get into the shower, her old sweat stale now that adrenaline had faded back to normal. It wasn’t hard to let the exact details of the day disappear, leaving only the feeling of accomplishment. A grin plastered her face by the end as she slicked back her wet hair and put on comfortably clean tanks.

Stepping around the corner, she saw Sharon also newly clean.

“Hey,” Sharon said.

“Hey,” Kara answered. One thing she was not going to forget was Sharon’s exemplary adaptation to various circumstances in the field. Not perfect, but beyond what Kara had expected from a new recruit. Especially given their conversation on the way there. “So, that talk of peacetime training...”

“I’m a little naive, I guess,” Sharon said, almost flushing.

“You proved it where it counts, though,” Kara said, and slapped a hand on her shoulder, adding slightly under her breath, “Which is more than most of them can say.”

Sharon glanced around at the rest of the locker room, cocky men and women joking and whipping each other with towels and betting on meaningless Viper tricks—and she grinned a little at Kara.

“Drink?” Kara offered.

“Absolutely,” Sharon answered.

They strolled out together, and Kara had more than half a mind to tell Karl to make sure Sharon got more missions. Peace or not, they needed people like her to get experience to go along with their natural talent.

Of course, not before Kara got totally drunk with Sharon first. She had a solid feeling that this was going to be fun, and though she planned to resist saying anything about the start of a beautiful friendship or any such nonsense like that—well, after a dozen drinks, who knew what anyone said.


End file.
